WIlliam Shatner shows up as Capt. Kirk to help host Seth MacFarlane open the Academy Awards. / Robert Deutsch USAT

by USA TODAY

by USA TODAY

This can't be good: Ancient, doddering Captain Kirk is trending on Twitter, getting as many reviews as young-and-cool Seth MacFarlane, hosting the Academy Awards for the first time tonight.

Surprise! William Shatner showed up - in Star Trek uniform, too - to help MacFarlane with the opening, engaging the host from a Enterprise-like computer window and doing a shtick using the well-worn Star Trek trope of time travel.

MacFarlane wasn't a total hit with the Twitter crowd: "He looks like a really immature Donny Osmond," commented more than one tweet. The word "lame" came up in other tweets.

At one point MacFarlane joked about Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, a leading actor of his day. It didn't go over that well.

"Don't make #JohnWilkesBooth jokes in front of a bunch of actors," advised Bette Midler in a tweet.

Reporters in the hall said he fared pretty well with the crowd early on, despite a few groans at some of the more politically correct cracks. No star Gael Garcia Bernal said, "Seth is very funny."